Meet the Neighbours
by SweetDeamon
Summary: "There had been so many different houses over the years, so many different neighbours. But he'd never felt this way about any of them before. Not the way he felt about her..." TLOC Friendship. RLNT. AU. Prequel of sorts to Meet the Lupins.
1. No Neighbours

_Note: This is an attempt to banish writer's block for my other stories. It isn't a one shot, but it won't be as long as other Meet the... stories, either. Carrie will make an appearance...eventually._

_Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter._

**1: No Neighbours**

He'd been born in the spare bedroom of his grandmother's house and had remained living there with his parents and grandmother for several months. Several important months, in fact, that had been as bleak and dark as any there had ever been to begin with, but had ended full of joy and optimism.

It was probably that optimism, fuelled by the end of the war, that had led to Teddy Lupin coming to live in a second house, the first that his parents had bought as a family home.

They'd had lots of family homes since then. Or just a lot of houses. They didn't spend enough time in most of them for Teddy to feel truly at home.

That first family home had lasted a good couple of years and Teddy had vague memories of it.

They hadn't had any neighbours.

It had been a secluded cottage atop a steep hill from which one could see for miles around. When his parents had first reminded him of this fact many years later Teddy had supposed it sounded like a bit of a fortress. It had been large in comparison to the houses that would come after it, indeed his mother said they had been lucky to find such a house with a modest budget like theirs.

They never should have bought it, his father always said. It had been stupid. Hopelessly optimistic. Like everything else just after the war.

_Why did you, then?_ Teddy had asked, and Remus had smiled rather wistfully and recalled:

_It was safe. _

Teddy's single clear memory of that house never made it seem particularly safe, if truth be told. He had been around two years old, he supposed, though he didn't know for certain. He was sure his parents would have been able to tell him his precise age, but he didn't like to admit to remembering the incident at all. It had been winter, the weather outside dull and misty, and he had been sat upon his mother's lap in the sitting room, fiddling with the shiny beaded necklace that had been hanging around her neck. And then there had been a loud knock upon the door. He'd been swept up into his mother's arms as she had gone to answer the door, and Teddy's overriding memory had been the figure stood upon the doorstep when the door had been pulled open.

The visitor had been a tall, broad, bear-like man with small, squinting eyes and he had been clutching a bundle of papers in one hand, his wand in the other. His voice had been gruff and rather too loud and Teddy had hidden his face in the front of his mother's robes.

He didn't remember the conversation that had happened then first-hand, but he had pieced it together over the years and had concluded that he was quite glad to have been too small to understand a word of it at the time.

"Is he 'ere?"

"Excuse me?"

"I said is he 'ere?"

"I don't know, is he? A name might be helpful."

"I'm lookin' for a Mr...R J Lupin. Is he 'ere?"

"And...your name is...?"

"Flint. I'm 'ere on behalf of Gringott's."

"I see. No, he isn't here."

"Well that's bloody convenient for 'im, isn't it?"

"I expect it is, yes."

"When will 'e be back?"

"He's away on business."

"Oh really? What sort of business do werewolves get up to these days, I wonder?"

"If that's all, Mr. Flint, it's my son's nap time."

"What a nice little lad you've got yourself there, Mrs. Lupin. Tell 'em to leave 'is cradle when they come for the rest, shall I? In case he's 'aving a sleep..."

"Are you threatening me, Mr. Flint?"

"Of course not. I'm just sayin', you best 'ave a word with that 'usband of yours..."

"I'm sure I will. Now, may I suggest you turn around and crawl back into whichever filthy hole you came from? The weather's dull enough to darken my doorstep without your added input, thank you very much."

Teddy assumed that this was roughly the moment when his mother had slammed the door in Mr Flint's face.

Things in that house hadn't been the same after that. His father had been dreadfully changed. Dull, lifeless, pale and not at all cooperative in playing two-year old Teddy's energetic games. Hide and seek was replaced by the half-hearted reading of storybooks. The characters lost their various voices that had always made Teddy giggle and Remus' smiles grew as convincing as those that his son forced onto his face by pushing little fingers at the sides of his mouth.

"You deserve a different Daddy." the werewolf had informed the toddler one afternoon whilst they sat at the kitchen table, stacking brightly coloured bricks up into a precariously tall tower, and over by the sink Dora had snapped:

"Don't say that for Merlin's sake!"

"Don't be over-sensitive. He doesn't understand."

Dora had flung her wand down upon the kitchen countertop and come to crouch before the little boy, reaching to fix him with a serious look.

"Teddy Sweetheart," she'd said, voice the model of seriousness. "How should you like to come away with Mummy to a nice new house, and we'll leave Daddy behind, forget all about him and find you a new daddy to stack bricks with you instead? How does that sound?"

When Teddy simply stared at her, hand reaching back to grasp hold of a fistful of his father's jumper, she grinned at him and admitted:

"Now that wouldn't be very nice, would it? No, it wouldn't be very nice at all!" As she straightened up she offered her husband a scowl as she mused: "I can't think why though, can you Remus? I can't imagine why he'd rather have you than some other random man who isn't his actual father! Some other person who doesn't love him half as much! I'm sure he'd prefer a dad who doesn't protect him by disappearing into his bedroom before bedtime each evening to have a very loud and over-dramatic battle with the bogeyman who apparently lives in his wardrobe! I'm sure he'd like a dad who gets bored of reading the same storybook repeatedly every afternoon, or somebody who disappears off to work all day long just like Mummy does leaving him with his grandmother who spends most of her time telling him not to touch things in case he breaks them! It's completely beyond me, Remus, it really is! But there you have it, he seems rather attached to you!"

There had been a sizeable pause as Teddy had gathered up another good fistful of jumper in his hands, only for Remus to prise his hands open and reach to set him down upon the kitchen floor.

"We need to move." the werewolf had announced as he rose to his feet. "This is ridiculous. We never should have bought this place to begin with, we can't afford it."

And his wife had leant back against the kitchen cupboard, lips pursed together before she quietly agreed:

"Well, we'd better start looking then."

Which was how just a few weeks later Teddy came to be living in a new house. One that was vastly different to the quiet, secluded place that he had been used to...


	2. Angel Broadview

_Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter._

**2: Angel Broadview**

He'd never much liked Angel Broadview. He'd just liked her sandpit.

She hadn't been an angel at all and four year old Teddy had told his mother so. His mother had told him that names weren't always accurate, but at least Angel Broadview was true to half of her name, and then she had laughed.

Teddy hadn't really understood what was funny.

Angel Broadview and her parents were the Lupins' neighbours for some three years whilst they had been in their second home. She had been a bad-tempered little girl with frizzy brown pigtails, watery blue eyes and two chins that wobbled around an awful lot. She was easily twice Teddy's size, despite being only a year or two his senior, and was probably almost as wide as she was tall. She had nice parents, or so Teddy had originally thought. Her mother often appeared at the Lupins' door to offer them a plateful of cauldron cakes, which always astonished Teddy because he was certain Angel scoffed the lot as soon as they came out of the oven. A short while after Teddy's fourth birthday Mr. Broadview had bought Angel a sandpit and Mrs. Broadview had insisted that Teddy could play in it as often as he pleased, which he did, but only when Angel wasn't around.

Avoiding her was by no means easy, indeed avoiding anybody in Greenwood Rise was bordering on impossible. For one thing, the place was absolutely stuffed full of people. Each floor of the building housed four families in a series of pokey little flats and the tower block was so tall that looking up at it made Teddy feel dizzy. The walls seemed paper thin, there seemed to be a constant buzz of background noise from the flats around them and any arguments amongst their neighbours, of which there appeared to be many, would be heard by anybody in the surrounding rooms should they decide to listen carefully enough.

"Why is it called Greenwood, Daddy? It doesn't look very green to me." Teddy had observed one afternoon as his father led him by the hand up towards the main entrance, fresh back from their daily trip to the park where, weather permitting, they would sit and practice Teddy's reading and counting in relative peace and quiet.

"Wishful thinking, Theodore." Remus had told him as he had pulled open the door with a creak.

Greenwood Rise, located just behind the rundown shop that disguised the entrance to St. Mungo's Hospital, had been built some while earlier to house the staff at the hospital, specifically medical students who had a habit of being short on funds. By the time Teddy had lived there it seemed that even the medical students chose to live elsewhere if they could, and even as a young child Teddy didn't really blame them. Years later both of his parents had admitted that they could probably have afforded something a little better, but had chosen to grin and bear it for as long as possible in order to build up some savings in their Gringott's vault. It had been a loathsome few years for the pair of them, but they had always attempted to be enthusiastic.

"Well," Dora had observed upon the morning that they had first arrived in the grotty London street, eying the small patch of muddy grass that ran down the side of the tower block, utterly dismal in comparison to the rolling fields surrounding their previous home. "It could be worse!"

"Could it?" her husband had wondered as he watched hordes of children attempting to find a space to play upon the cramped piece of greenery, and Dora had paused doubtfully for a second before suggesting:

"Well there'll be plenty of other children for Ted to play with, won't there? And that's good, don't you think? He never had anybody his age around in the old house."

Teddy later doubted that Angel Broadview was really the sort of playmate that Dora would have chosen for him. She was, by all accounts, a nasty piece of work. She was spoilt as far as her father's modest salary as a cleaner at the hospital would allow, arrogant and downright spiteful. It was not long after the arrival of the wondrous sandpit upon the meagre strip of grass outside of the flats that conversation around the Lupins' table at dinnertime became distinctly repetitive.

"Angel Broadview says her toy broomstick is better than mine, Mummy."

"Why's that, Teddy love?"

"Because it has tassels on the handle! Red ones and blue ones and yellow ones and...and pink ones!"

"Yeah? Well I'll tell you a secret, Ted, and you mustn't tell Angel I told you because she'll be cross! Only little children have tassels on their broomsticks. Big boys and girls don't bother with silly things like that."

"Angel Broadview says her sandcastle was better than mine, Daddy."

"Did you have fun building your sandcastle?"

"Yes!"

"Well then, I shouldn't worry what anybody else has to say about it. I'm sure it was absolutely splendid. Eat those greens up, won't you? Because Mummy bought some ice cream on her way home from work and we can't eat any until you do."

"Angel Broadview says her mummy's cakes taste better than yours, Mummy."

"That's probably because they do, Sweetheart. Pass Mummy the salt please, there's a good boy."

"Angel Broadview says I have a silly voice, Daddy."

"What's silly about it, Ted?"

"She says I'm a silly little posh boy!"

"Does she now? Well, I'm glad to hear it."

"Angel Broadview says I'm a weakling, Mummy."

"Does she now?"

"Yes! She says I'm a skinny little weakling and if I'm not careful the other boys will...will take my broomstick and...and give me a good whack with it!"

"Well that's not going to happen, I'm sure."

"But that's what she said! She said that's what happens to skinny little weaklings!"

"Yeah? Well obviously she's never heard of Neville Longbottom."

"Angel Broadview says her daddy says people like us are the worst sort of people there are, Daddy."

"Did she now?"

"Yes. So I told her that Mummy says her mummy is much too fat."

"I see..."

"So she stamped on my sandcastle! Then I stamped on hers, too!"

"Naturally. Theodore, you mustn't say rude things about Angel's parents..."

"But she said..."

"It doesn't matter what she said."

"She said Peter Rowland from upstairs would give me a kicking because that's what happens to filthy little dogs. That's what she said!"

"Filthy little dogs?"

"Yes, Daddy! She said I was a filthy little dog! And...and then...and then she said..."

"That's what Peter told her, is it?"

"Yes! And Peter's big sister...the one with the funny looking teeth! And...and William from next door, he and Jenna said it too, they all think it, Angel says..."

"Sticks and stones, Teddy. Don't you listen to silly name calling like that. Now go and find your pyjamas, it's almost bedtime."

"Angel Broadview says her mummy says you're a fruitcake, Mummy."

"I shouldn't worry, Sweetheart. All the best people are. Now eat up, won't you? Daddy and I need to pack some more of these boxes."

"She says her mummy says you'd have to be a fruitcake to marry somebody like Daddy."

"I expect she's right, darling."

"She says her mummy says nobody normal would be silly enough to marry a werewolf."

"I see...be a good boy and go and put your shoes on, won't you? Nice and quickly now, there's a good boy...REMUS? GET YOUR CLOAK..."

And that was how Teddy Lupin came to leave Greenwood Rise and Angel Broadview, and went to live in a third house...


	3. Graham Francis

**3: Graham Francis**

In contrast to Angel Broadview, Graham Francis was probably exactly the sort of child that Teddy's parents would prefer him to befriend. On his own part, Teddy had, to begin with at least, been very keen on doing exactly that.

He'd met Graham and his father Mr. Francis on the same day that his parents had agreed to move into the third house.

It hadn't been a house, Dora had claimed years later, it had been an oversized shed with far too many holes in the roof.

But it had also been entirely rent free for a couple of months, if Remus agreed to fix the roof and generally tidy the place up a bit, which, being unemployed and with ample spare time on his hands, the werewolf was more than happy to agree to.

It had been the best they could find at such short notice. With any luck, he and Dora had decided, they'd have saving enough to buy somewhere better by the time the repairs were finished.

They never did get finished. The roof was still leaking approximately a month later when they left.

Despite the state of the third house, Teddy had thought it wonderful in comparison to Greenwood Rise. It was even more cramped than the flat before it, with the kitchen and sitting room all crammed into a single room, a cupboard masquerading as a bathroom and just a single bedroom, which Teddy shared with his mother, leaving his father to sleep upon the sofa. But what it lacked in rooms it made up for in location; tucked away in the corner of a vast field in which Teddy was left to play when the weather was fine.

It was out in the field that he often ran into Graham Francis. Graham's father owned both the shed-come-house, the field in which it stood and the vast mansion just down the road. The Francis family were very well to do and extremely wealthy. Teddy had always thought this a rather brilliant stroke of luck, because Graham always seemed to have a steady supply of sweets and treats stuffed into his trouser pockets and he was always willing to share them. In comparison to the boisterous children back at Greenwood Rise, Graham was a quietly spoken little boy who favoured books over play fighting and games of make-believe over impromptu wrestling matches. It was from Graham that Teddy first received his first small collection of chocolate frog cards, made up of duplicates that Graham owned. Dora had been threatening to set fire to them on a regular basis ever since.

Despite his apparent shy nature, Graham was extremely inquisitive, and his most favourite game above all others was to pretend that he and Teddy were Wizarding Britain's greatest and most brilliant detectives. The two boys rarely found anything at all worthwhile to investigate, however, and so the vast majority of their time was spent on the very serious task of general surveillance.

Or as Teddy and Graham liked to call it: Spying on adults.

They often spoke of sneaking down the road to the nearest muggle village in order to observe the goings on of the residents who were, by default since they were muggles, all rather odd. But this was nothing but wild fantasy, for the boys' parents strictly forbade them leave the field without being accompanied, and spying was awfully tricky when one had to ask your daddy if he might go with you. It didn't look terribly professional for a detective to be seen holding his daddy's hand when they crossed over the road, and most adults were far too big to fit under an imaginary invisibility cloak.

Consequently Graham and Teddy spent most of their time spying on their own parents.

Remus was their personal favourite to observe. For one thing, he was almost always at home, and for another he always seemed to be doing something interesting. They were never exactly sure what that something was, it often involved a lot of mumbling and staring at books, and the hiding of random objects in dark corners, behind curtains or even under the rug by the fire.

Graham suspected that Teddy's father was quite possibly some sort of evil genius bent on some form of World Domination.

Teddy suspected that his father was quite possibly very strange.

So did Teddy's mother.

_Have you seen the stick of wax, love? I'm trying to seal a letter._

_It's in the pot of Floo Powder, wrapped up in some tissue paper._

_It's where?_

It was not until many years later that it occurred to Teddy that Remus had known he was being watched and was simply playing along.

Nothing of the sort had ever occurred to Dora.

It had been Graham and Teddy's spying on Remus that had ruined everything. After all, Remus hadn't been playing along that morning, absolutely not.

Teddy had just returned from his grandmother's house, where he slept overnight on Fridays in order that Remus could, for at least one night a week, shun the sofa in favour of sleeping in a proper bed with Dora. Once a month the day changed from Friday to whichever day was most convenient.

There was often a full moon outside of the window at Teddy's grandmother's house. There had been the night before that fatal day, too, and as usual after a full moon Teddy was not taken home until almost eleven o'clock instead of the usual nine. And as usual Andromeda had shooed him off into the field, suggesting he go and play whilst she unpacked his overnight bag.

Teddy later supposed that she was checking up on things at home before allowing him to witness them himself. Once she had taken just a few steps inside the house before calling him back to her and apparating them away again and he'd stayed at her house for an extra night.

That might well have been what she had intended on the day in question, too, but Teddy had been quick to give her the slip.

He'd run off into the field without so much as a backwards glance, and had promptly run into Graham, who had been lounging around upon the grass, his glasses wonky upon his nose and his expression one of extreme boredom. Graham's face had brightened considerably and he had scrambled to his feet, announcing:

"I've been waiting for you all morning!" The little boy had drawn himself up to his full height and informed his playmate grandly: "We have a lot of investigating to do!"

For a short while they had wandered around the edge of the field, peering through the bushes in an attempt to glimpse life outside their designated play area, but they soon grew bored of the lack of passersby and crept back towards Teddy's house in search of something more interesting.

Teddy had been rather apprehensive at first, after all spying on his parents, or indeed venturing so close to the house on a morning like this one was strictly not allowed. But Graham had been, as usual, so enthusiastic...

And then there had been the voices.

"I don't...I dont know, Mum. I don't know! He was like that when I found him!"

The two little boys had shuffled closer to the open window and were just rising up onto their tiptoes to peer curiously inside when they heard Teddy's grandmother insist:

"Calm down, Nymphadora."

The person they caught sight of was Teddy's mother. She was sat at the little round kitchen table, her face buried in her hands. Teddy's grandmother was bent over the sofa, a shallow basin of water at her feet as she squeezed the water from a face flannel.

"Sweet Merlin," the elderly witch murmured despairingly, "it just doesn't stop bleeding, does it?"

"No, it doesn't."

"Has he been unconscious the whole morning?"

"S...since I found him..." Dora's shoulders had slumped and she had failed to suppress a small sob.

"Bad batch of Wolfsbane, I think." Andromeda concluded despairingly as she straightened up. "I'll take Teddy home with me...or perhaps we'll floo Harry, shall we? Get him to come and pick Teddy up? That way I can stay here with you..." she turned to offer her daughter a questioning look, and at the sight of her promptly swept across the room to envelope her in a firm hug.

"Now don't you start panicking!" the witch began to tell her daughter, "Wipe those tears away..."

But just as she had move, the two boys outside had caught sight of her lifeless patient lying sprawled upon the sofa.

Graham screamed.

As both witches inside the house jerked around to look towards the window, Graham turned on his heel and fled back towards his house, shouting for his mother at the top of his lungs.

Teddy had simply stood, completely frozen, gazing through the window at his father, the horrible scarlet slashes and terribly crimson trickles that seeped slowly down his flesh and onto the mass of blankets beneath him, staining them an ugly red.

The little boy had felt all of the colour drain from his face until his complexion was no doubt as ghastly pale as the unconscious werewolf himself, and as the sight seared into his eyes he heard the scraping of a chair and before he knew it the front door had been flung open and he had found his face buried in the front of his mother's robes.

"Close your eyes, Sweetheart." Dora had told him. "Close your eyes..."

He'd heard quite a commotion going on inside the house, but had no idea quite what was going on, and his mother's grip upon him had been so tight that the two of them trembled.

"Are you closing your eyes, Teddy?" Dora had whispered into his mousy brown hair, and Teddy had whispered back:

"Yes, Mummy."

"Tell me what happened yesterday morning. After Mummy went to work."

"Daddy made me some breakfast."

"What did he make you?"

"Jam on toast."

"And was it nice?"

"Yes."

"Did he cut it into squares?"

"No. He cut it into...into triangles..."

"Daddy's good at making toast, isn't he? He doesn't burn it like Mummy does."

"No he doesn't."

"Well then," Dora had decided, straightening up so that she could reach to smooth his hair soothingly. "How should you like Daddy to make us all jam on toast tomorrow for breakfast? That would be nice, wouldn't it?"

Teddy had glanced rather doubtfully over at the window again, only to have his mother reach to turn his head back to look up at her.

"Daddy will make us jam on toast tomorrow." she had insisted, managing a smile. "And d'you know why, Sweetheart?"

Teddy had shook his head.

"Because Mummy says so." Dora had told him, smile widening to a grin. "_And_...?"

"And Mummy knows best." the little boy had finished knowingly, and she promptly ruffled the hair she had been so intent on smoothing and exclaimed:

"Exactly!"

And then she'd glanced over towards the grand house across the field and spotted a small figure hurriedly leading a distinctly adult-sized one towards them, and her expression had grown suddenly wary.

"Big smiles, love." she muttered doubtfully as Graham and his mother had drawn closer.

"Graham says there's been a terrible accident!" Mrs. Francis had announced breathlessly when she and her son had reached them. "He says your husband is hurt!"

"It's quite alright." Dora had told her as Teddy turned to gaze at the two neighbours, hugging his mother's arm tightly to his chest. "Everything's perfectly under control..."

"Do let me take a look at him," Mrs. Francis had insisted, "I'm a healer, you know, I'm sure I can help..."

"My mum's seeing to him. We're perfectly fine, thank you...in fact...in fact we're going to floo him over to my mum's house, it's...it's far more comfortable. Say goodbye to Graham, Teddy."

Teddy had refused.

His mother hadn't scolded him.

And that was how Teddy came to leave his third family home and move into yet another one...


	4. The Jarvis Triplets

_Note: 2 days of MTV work experience done, 2 more to go! Then it's back to (probably) writing more often. Thanks to those of you who are reviewing these random ramblings I'm posting here! :-) _

**4: The Jarvis Triplets**

He was very nearly six years old when he met the Jarvis triplets.

They unnerved him.

There were a whole raft of reasons why Teddy found the three little girls who lived across the road from the fourth house unnerving. For one thing, he found it entirely impossible to tell them apart. He had no idea which one was Enid, which one was Erin or which one was Emma. They all had the same long milky blonde hair, always braided in the same way, with identical bows to match identical dresses. They were a trio of clones, right down to the freckles on their cheeks and they were unnaturally proper. There never seemed to be a spec of dirt upon their clothes, not a hair out of place or a sock not pulled right up to a knee. Teddy was quite convinced that they weren't really children at all, they simply couldn't be. They weren't noisy like Angel Broadview and the children at Greenwood Rise, they weren't inquisitive or adventurous like Graham Francis. They were like no children that Teddy had ever seen before.

They were aliens.

Aliens who liked to skip rope and chant grizzly rhymes out on the cobbled street. Teddy would sit and watch them from the sitting room window.

_You could go and ask to play, if you like_, his father would suggest after some half an hour or so, but instead Teddy would go and hide in his bedroom, peering down into the street again from behind the refuge of a curtain.

Teddy was quite taken with having a bedroom all to himself.

So was his mother.

"We have," Dora had announced dramatically to her husband the evening they had finally finished lugging the last of their belongings out of Andromeda's house where they had been staying, crammed into a single bedroom for near on six months, "A BEDROOM!"

"Excellent," Remus had mumbled, kicking off his shoes and stifling a yawn into his hand. "Let's use it, then." And with that he'd thrown himself down upon the bed and fallen asleep almost as soon as his head had hit the pillow.

From where he stood in the doorway, chewing thoughtfully upon a nail, Teddy had heard his mother demand:

"Remus, don't even think about falling asleep!"

Teddy wasn't really sure why it was so important for Remus to be awake at ten minutes to midnight, but when it became apparent that the werewolf had no intention of yielding to his wife's request the little boy offered:

"I'll stay awake, Mummy!"

Dora had turned to eye him, eyes twinkling in amusement before padding across the carpeted room to usher him across the landing towards his own bed.

"That's very sweet of you, Sweetheart, but it's much too past your bedtime! But you could let Mummy borrow your glass of water, so she can tip it over Daddy's head. It worked last time..."

The fourth house was still relatively modest, yet nothing like as cramped as the one before it. It had a cosy sitting room with a large stone fireplace that Teddy liked to sprawl in front of in the evenings, a separate kitchen and a bathroom with a shower. It was located in a large wizarding village in the West Country and though in many ways it was nice to be surrounded by the hustle and bustle of everyday life, in truth it made Teddy nervous.

After all, if Remus could be found out in the secluded setting of the previous house, surely it was only a matter of time before it happened again here...

Nevertheless they stayed for almost a year.

Most mornings, when Teddy went with his father down to the local village store for milk and other everyday supplies, they would pass the Jarvis triplets, the steady thud of highly polished shoes upon the cobbles as one sister jumped, the others whirling their skipping rope round and round, chanting their latest rhyme.

_Little Lucy Humble, _

_All dressed in white,_

_Took a little tumble,_

_Late last night._

_How many steps did she fall down?_

_One, two, three, four, _

_To the ground! _

_What on earth is a witch to do?_

_When a witch is a witch like Jenny Sue?_

_Her charms aren't charming!_

_Her potions a joke!_

_They hiss and bubble and make you choke!_

_Lock up your children,_

_The Hag's in town!_

_Drawbridge up and shutters down!_

_Check your windows and check the lock!_

_Get caught and she'll gobble you up!_

Teddy became quite used to the grizzly little chants, though they made him frown quite distastefully and at the sight of his forehead crinkling, Remus would always laugh at him.

"They're just rhymes, Ted." the werewolf would remind him. "They don't do anybody any harm."

For a while, Teddy had entirely believed his father's words, but eventually he had no choice but to conclude that Remus was, for once, completely and utterly wrong.

It began one unremarkable late afternoon when his mother had returned home from work, brown paper bag clutched tightly in her hands and her face unnaturally pale.

Dora had marched into the sitting room where Teddy had been sat beside his father on the sofa, carefully sounding out the next few words that he was reading from a storybook. The witch had promptly shoved the paper bag into her husband's lap and demanded:

"Drink it, for Merlin's sake!" And then she had reached to bury her face in her hands, fingers grasping at stray strands of lightening blue hair.

There had been a sizeable pause as Remus had reached to extract the murky bottle of potion from the paper bag, before he wondered, quite necessarily Teddy thought:

"Is something wrong?"

"I was seen...!" Dora had ground out through clenched teeth, and Remus leant to set the bottle down upon the coffee table, visibly paling.

"By who?" he half-whispered, only to seemingly remember that Teddy was still in the room. Apparently the matter at hand was far too distracting, however, for he barely glanced round as he instructed: "Go and put that book back in your room, Ted, and make sure all of your toys are packed away. We don't want Mummy tripping over them when she comes to say goodnight later, do we?"

Teddy had slipped carefully down off of the sofa and had headed for the stairs. He had barely reached them before a hushed, hurried conversation broke out between the two adults.

"Who saw you?"

"She did...!"

"She?"

"Over the bloody road! Angela bloody Jarvis!"

"Perhaps she won't know what it was you were buying..."

"Of course she'll bloody know what it was! She's a bloody apothecary's assistant!"

"Oh Merlin..."

"I'm not moving, Remus. I'm telling you now, I'm not moving, not again..."

"But we're not safe..."

"I like it here."

"So do I, darling. But we're not safe. Teddy isn't safe..."

"I know, I know...it's just...for Merlin's sake! Why? Again!"

"How long do you think we have?"

"A few nights, perhaps?"

"Pack a bag for Ted, we'll send him to your mum's or Harry's..."

"No! We're not sending him anywhere..."

"It's not safe."

"No, it isn't. But I'm not sending him away, not yet...I don't want him to get frightened. Not after just now. I shouldn't have burst in like that...I was just...well..."

"One night, then. He can stay one more night and then..."

"Then I'll take him round to Mum's first thing in the morning."

"Yes. First thing."

"Exactly."

"Precisely."

As he peered down from where he had paused, crouched upon the landing above, Teddy had watched the two adults gaze at one another, eyes growing fierce as if daring each other to protest, until finally she reached to straighten the collar of his shirt and he reached to dust invisible dust from her shoulder.

"Chin up, Sweetheart." the witch whispered, and as his finger reached to brush her jaw, the werewolf agreed:

"Chin up, darling."

From that moment on, everything went back to normal.

Or so Teddy had thought.

He'd sat in his bedroom and gazed out of the open window, watching the sun begin to sink in streaks of orange and pink as in the street below the Jarvis triplets jumped rope.

_Can you hear the banshee's song?_

_Just one note and you'll be gone!_

_Sing a little louder!_

_Drown her out!_

_And just in case,_

_MAKE SURE YOU SHOUT! _

_Little Ollie Walters was in the wood,_

_Picking Mama flowers like a good son should!_

_The moon was high and the moon was round!_

_Little Ollie Walters heard a sound!_

_A terrible creature that gave a howl!_

_A werewolf with fangs and an awful growl!_

_Savage, evil, darkest creature!_

_What can little Ollie teach'ya?_

_Quick little Ollie, grab your stick! _

_How many strikes can a little boy hit?  
>One strike, two strike, three strike, four strike, five strike...<em>

When Dora came to fetch Teddy for his dinner, it took her some minutes to locate him, curled up in ball in the dark under his bed.

"What are we playing?" the witch inquired as she consented to lying flat on her stomach in order to get a good look at him, and the little boy told her flatly:

"We're not."

"Ah. What are you doing under there then, hm?"

"The Jarvis triplets."

"What about them, love?"

"They want Little Ollie to beat Daddy to death with a stick."

There was a sizeable pause as Dora allowed this piece of news to sink in before she gave a chuckle and told the boy:

"Don't be silly, Sweetheart. It's just a silly skipping rhyme, isn't it?"

"Is it?"

"Of course it is! We used to sing it when I was a little girl. _Little Ollie Walters was in the wood_..."

Teddy reached to clamp his hands over his ears. His mother strained to reach an arm under the bed in order to pull his hands down.

"Listen love, it's just a song. It doesn't mean anything. There's no Little Ollie Walters and it's just a werewolf, it's not Daddy! Besides, any little boy who thinks he can beat a werewolf to death with a stick is completely and utterly deluded..."

"You could beat Daddy to death with a stick though, couldn't you? If...if it wasn't...full moon..."

"Of course I could, Sweetheart, but that's Mummy's privilege, nobody else gets to do it. Now come on, come out from there and stop being silly. Your dinner will get cold."

When Teddy didn't move, Dora slumped sideways until she was lying on her back, staring up at the ceiling.

"Teddy," she sighed, "You're much too young to understand this, so are the Jarvis girls, but that song isn't even about werewolves or sticks or anything of the sort. It's what's called a metaphor..."

"What's a metaphor?"

"Well...one time, a long time ago when Mummy and Daddy were little...or when Mummy was little at least there was a lot of trouble with the government of Wizarding Britain...which is very boring and dull for little boys to understand. But the point is somebody made up a song about the government and the people and what the people should do to the government...Little Ollie Walters is meant to be the people, the werewolf is the government being all scary and..." she trailed off, frowning deeply before deciding: "It really doesn't matter, Ted. The point is some things aren't what they sound like, and Little Ollie Walters is one of them. You don't need to be frightened about a silly rhyme being sung by some little girls. Now come along! If you don't hurry up, Daddy will have eaten all of the washed potato."

Despite allowing his mother to coax him out from under his bed, Teddy was not at all reassured by the notion of a metaphor, which he really didn't understand at all, and he spent the rest of the evening being clingy and refusing to go to bed.

It was almost ten o'clock when Remus resorted to carrying him up the stairs and, once Teddy had screamed and fought for all he was worth, the werewolf was forced to drag him by the arms into his bedroom, before depositing him on the bed.

"Pyjamas, Teddy."

"I won't go to bed! I WON'T! I WON'T!"

"Take your socks off, please."

"NO! I WON'T!"

"It's very late, Theodore. It's far past your bedtime and your mother has to get up to go to work in the morning. Now are you going to take those socks off like a grown up boy, or am I going to have to take them off for you?"

"NO!"

"I see. Come here, then..."

"But I don't want to go to sleep, Daddy!"

"And why ever not?"

"I don't want to sleep in my room!"

"Perhaps when the weather is better Mummy might allow you to pitch a tent in the garden. Until then, take that t-shirt off this instant and stop pulling faces. If the wind changes you'll stay like that..."

"I'm scared, Daddy." Teddy complained, and almost as soon as Remus had pulled the t-shirt free from his head the child lunged to throw his arms around his father, holding on with all his might.

Tossing the t shirt towards the end of the bed, Remus was forced to pause in his battle to ask:

"What are you scared of, Teddy?"

"He's scared of Little Ollie Walters." a voice announced from the doorway, and as they both looked round to see her, Dora wandered into the room, twirling her wand absent-mindedly around in one hand.

"Ah." Remus said with an audible snigger, and as she came to a stop beside the bed Dora reminded their son:

"Nobody's going to beat Daddy to death with a stick, Sweetheart. Remember, only Mummy gets to do that." She paused in her twirling to give her husband a sharp jab in the arm, and he offered her a frown.

"Nobody's going to do anything to anybody, Ted. Besides, who'd dare sneak in here with a silly old stick when Mummy sleeps with her wand under her pillow? They'd have to be stark raving mad or at least downright stupid!" the werewolf assured the child, reaching to pick up the stripy pyjama bottoms, giving them a shake.

"What if they have wands?" Teddy wondered, fingers toying uncertainly with the waistband of his trousers.

"So what if they have, love?" Dora said, grinning broadly. "Daddy's not going to survive two wizarding wars only to get hexed to death in his pyjamas! He'd look utterly ridiculous!" She reached to ruffle the child's hair before telling him: "Besides, I'm not an Auror for nothing, am I? What d'you suppose I do all day? Sit around in my office playing Exploding Snap with Minister Shacklebolt?"

"You are rather good at it..."

"Shut up, Remus. Nobody in their right mind would try and attack us, Teddy love. Tough as old boots, that's Daddy and me. Now go on, tough old boots need plenty of sleep. Especially when they have to get up early to go and play Exploding Snap!"

As it turned out, Teddy discovered, his parents have been entirely correct.

Nobody came bursting into the house wielding any sort of stick, or indeed a weapon of any description.

But that was because they didn't necessarily need to burst in personally.

Teddy was never entirely sure what precisely woke him, whether it was the earsplitting crash of breaking glass or the hefty thump of the brick landing upon the pillow beside him, a mere couple of inches from his face. Either way the child's sudden near miss terrified him into stunned silence, a clumsy gasp escaping his lips as his entire body tensed in terror, his eyes screwed shut.

They snapped back open again at the sound of his bedroom door being flung open and as his parents bolted into the room a startled sob finally escaped his lips.

His father reached him first, scooping him up tightly into his arms, and as he clung to the front of the werewolf's pyjama shirt Teddy dared to look round, just in time to see his mother come to a skidding halt beside the smashed window. In one swift movement she had flung back her arm, before thrusting her wand forwards to point out of the window with bang and a burst of light.

The spell shot out of the window and Teddy flinched at a sickening snapping sound, accompanied by a pained shout.

"MOVE A MUSCLE AND I'LL BLOODY BREAK THE OTHER ONE, TOO!" Dora bellowed out the window, face ashen in fury, only to lower her wand when Remus hissed:

"_Dora_...!"

The Auror instantly turned and hurried across the room, reaching to fling her arms around both husband and son, sucking in a deep breath that did little to calm her.

"I don't care if they try to charge me for it, I don't give a toss, Remus, they can say it's just a broken window if...if they like but...but look at...look at that! Another...another few inches to the side and...I'll...I'll bloody do it again and again, I swear..."

"Shh."

"Yes...shh. It's alright, Teddy Sweetheart. It's all going to be fine..."

"You're a very brave boy..."

"Very, very brave!"

"Now, how should you like to come with Daddy, and we'll...we'll find you some new clothes, get you out of these wet ones..."

Looking down at the state of his pyjama trousers, a dark, damp patch had appeared between his legs . It was fast spreading to the front of Remus' shirt, and Teddy had no recollection of how it had gotten there.

"You know," Dora said, suddenly almost cheery, "Mummy ironed you a fresh pair of pyjamas just yesterday!"

"Well then," Remus said, adjusting his hold upon the silent, blank eyed child, "we had better go and find those, then." He turned and set off towards the landing, Teddy's face buried in his chest, and as she turned to survey the brick upon her son's pillow once again, Dora mused:

"We're going to have to bend the rules, next time. For protective wards, I mean."

"Don't worry," Remus murmured darkly as he disappeared in the direction of the airing cupboard. "I intend on smashing them."

And so it was that Teddy came to leave the fourth house and move into the fifth one...


	5. Andromeda Tonks

Note: A random fluffy/angsty interlude...it was meant to just be the opening of a chapter but ended up really long! So...!

I've finished my work placement, so I should have plenty of time to do some writing! :-)

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.

**5: Andromeda Tonks**

Muggles.

That was the answer.

They'd live amongst muggles. To muggles werewolves were nothing but a fairytale and what better cover was there than the notion of pure fantasy and make-believe?

Apparently Remus hadn't thought a great deal of this idea when Dora had first suggested it during a hushed discussion upon their first night back at Andromeda's house, peering at one another through the darkness as they lay in bed, Teddy tucked up under the covers between them, pretending to be asleep.

"You want to take a five year old metamorphmagus to live amongst muggles? I can practically hear the owl coming to deliver the court summons..."

"He'd behave!"

"He'd certainly not!"

"Well I'd rather have a bunch of muggles spot a little boy with a pig snout than a bunch of wizards catching wind of you! Muggles can be Obliviated, the wizards can't!"

"You don't even like muggles..."  
>"Rubbish! When have I ever said I didn't like them? They're...very interesting..."<p>

"They're _a pain the arse_, that's what you said..."

"I can sit on a cushion..."

"And you're right! We'd be watching our backs constantly, in case they saw any magic..."

"We're always watching our backs anyway, Remus! What difference does it really make?"

"I just think we should...find somewhere quiet...like we did before all of this..."

"We can't afford it."

"But..."

"Your words, love, not mine!"

"There has to be somewhere..."

"We're not moving into another bloody shed, either! I'm not having any...any leaky roofs or...or damp on the walls. It's unhygienic and unhealthy for Teddy! And that's what it would be if it were out in the middle of nowhere on a budget like ours, wouldn't it? No, we'll find a muggle village or a muggle town. Give that a try."

Teddy had felt Remus shift further down in the bed beside him with a heavy sigh, and the werewolf admitted glumly:

"I must confess, I'm rather tired of trying."

"What sort of a thing is that to say?" Dora hissed, reaching to swipe a hand across her eyes as she too shuffled further under the covers.

"A truthful one." Remus told her, and she made to reach to slap his arm, only for Teddy to render him out of her reach.

"Lie to me, then."

"I can't."

"Then leave. Get out. Disappear like you did before, but don't come back this time."

"I can't do that, either."

"I know you can't. Then it's a pointless truth, Remus. It doesn't do anybody any good. At least when you lie to me we can pretend things are better."

"But you know when I'm lying. You can always tell."

"Then learn to be a better liar."

They lapsed into a somewhat somber silence for several minutes until Dora's gaze drifted up towards the ceiling and she asked:

"Do you ever wish you could? Leave, I mean."

"Sweet Merlin," the werewolf murmured, "How in Merlin's name can you ask me something like that? Of course I don't!"

"Then you wish you'd not come back the first time."

"No!"

"But you wish something. I know you do. I can tell you do when you sigh. You wish better for us. For Teddy and me. And you don't even bother to wish it for the three of us because you can't imagine yourself being a part of it. You think things can't be better with you. But you know things would be worse without you, too. And it bothers you. We're stuck and you can't make it better. You can't make anything better, you don't ever think you can. You've given up thinking you can keep us safe, you never hope much you'll find work to help support us, and you think you're wasting away before Teddy's eyes into this unfulfilled and bleak example of life. You think he won't respect you the same way he does me, you think he won't realise you have a purpose. You think he'll think the same as you do; that this family doesn't need or deserve to have you in it. But you're wrong. You're wrong about all of it because you hold us together. We'd crumble to pieces if it weren't for you. And Teddy knows it, I know he does. The way he clings to you...! Don't you go wishing good for only two of us, Sweetheart. There's always three of us, no matter what."

When Remus merely frowned deeply, Teddy found himself a little squashed as his mother leant towards the werewolf, her forehead coming to rest against his temple, a small, sad smile upon her lips.

"Stop waiting." the witch whispered, reaching to rearrange the covers around the child between them as Remus' gaze drifted down to stare at their son thoughtfully.

"For what?"

"The same thing you have been waiting for ever since Ted was born."

"I don't know what you mean..."

"You do. You're not going to leave us. You couldn't, you simply wouldn't be able to stand it. So you're waiting. Waiting for it not to be up to you, waiting for it to be out of your hands. You're waiting for me to pack my bags and leave you, for me to take Teddy away from you. It'd kill you all the same, but you'd prefer it anyway. But I love you, Remus. I love you more than anything, so stop waiting. It's not going to happen, Sweetheart. So stop."

"I know it won't happen. I always have, just like your mother told me the day I left for the Battle of Hogwarts. She told me you'd stuck by me even when I hadn't stuck by you, she said that was proof enough, we're bound together now. She told me not to die. She said she thought I'd like to...said it would be an...an acceptable way to leave you and a glorious one too because everybody would label me a hero for it. But she said if I thought about death that way...well I had better not die because it just wasn't right to let myself go for a reason like that. I spent half the battle thinking of what she said...willing myself not to get killed because I didn't want her to think I'd given up on standing by you. I wanted to go home afterwards and...and tuck Teddy up in bed and tell your mother that if I had died it wouldn't have been to leave you at all. It would have been for Harry and for a better world."

"You never did tell her." Dora guessed, head coming to rest against his shoulder. "I can tell. If you had done you wouldn't be so...so unnaturally decent and proper around her. You care a whole lot of what Mum thinks of you. You don't think she thinks very much."

"She'll think less and less the more we keep showing up on her doorstep."

"What she thinks or doesn't think is irrelevant, love. And you don't have the slightest clue what goes through her head, believe me."

"And you do?"

"I'm her daughter, I could have a good stab at it. You think she dislikes you for marrying me and getting me pregnant, for landing me in massive debt and having to move all over the place like we do. But she doesn't. She's known for ages that none of that is your fault. You didn't kidnap me, hold a wand to my head and make me recite our marriage vows, for Merlin's sake! You don't force me to stay with you, you spend half your life telling me to leave! You didn't plan getting me pregnant in the middle of a war, either. Mum knows all of that. She knows it because when I go downstairs tomorrow morning to tell her what our plans for moving are next, I'm not going to be in floods of tears telling her _Remus says we've got to do this, Remus says I have to do that_! I'm going to tell her that we've decided together, that we're both deciding to do it, not just you. And if she knows that you've not forced any of this life of ours on me, what else does she have left to dislike about you? You're a good father, you love Teddy and you love me, you're sensible, you keep a good eye on things to keep us safe, you organise our money down to every knut so we don't end up completely broke and you make us very happy. You're loyal and brave and clear thinking. You might have these talks with me but even when you feel low you're still strong enough to keep us afloat. What witch doesn't want a son-in-law like that?"

But Remus' eyes had simply drifted closed and he had murmured:

"We're not coming back here like this again. I mean it, Dora, we're not."


	6. Taylor Beech

_Note: This is nothing like I planned, but maybe somebody will still like it! We've just one chapter of this left to go!_

_Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter._

**6: Taylor Beech**

Teddy had been quick to decide that he liked muggles. Especially Taylor Beech and her brother Matthew who lived next door to the Lupins' fifth house.

As houses went, this was once again a modest one. End of terrace, identical to all those around it, red brick and small windows that left the rooms inside consistently dark, no matter what the time of day. It was further North than the previous houses. The people spoke with a funny accent.

Being muggles, however, their accents were the least funny things about them.

_Stop staring, Theodore. _

For the first few weeks, it seemed to Teddy that his father said nothing except for those three words. Occasionally he would remind the boy: _They're just the same as us, you know. _

Except they all drove around in cars or walked down the street with strange plugs in their ears connected to dangling wires that led into their pockets. They seemed to all own a wide array of gadgets with too many buttons. Their children seemed to spend a lot of time getting excited by games that seemed rather dull to Teddy like football or something his mother said was called swing ball. This game Teddy found particularly bemusing, for he couldn't see the point of giving the ball a good thwack with the bat if it could only fly a few feet before being pulled back by it's string.

It had been whilst they had been playing this strange game that Teddy had first set eyes upon Taylor and Matthew through a hole in the garden fence.

He didn't warm to them straight away.

But then again back then Teddy didn't warm to anybody.

He'd grown terribly clingy and shy since having the brick thrown through his bedroom window in the previous house. He'd spend the vast majority of his time following his father around the house as Remus completed chores and ignored any suggestions that he might want to go and play with his toys instead. When out and about he never moved from Remus' side and point blank refused to join in with the children at their local park. He spoke rarely to anybody besides his parents and every week when dropped off to visit his grandmother he would throw hysterical tantrums the second his parents showed any signs of preparing to leave him there.

"You know what we ought do, don't you?" Dora had observed one afternoon, stood with Remus in her mother's kitchen as Andromeda attempted to reason with a pink-faced shrieking Teddy back in the living room. "We should send him to primary school. He'd get used to being on his own soon enough."

"I've been telling myself that for the past month." Remus had admitted, frowning deeply. "But I'd not trust him to be around so many muggles, not with his morphing."

And Dora had chuckled despairingly as she muttered:

"He'd probably do it on purpose. Just so he didn't have to stay."

As chance would have it, their opportunity to impose some form of confidence in their son came just a few days later.

To begin with, as he sat at the breakfast table, watching his father slit open the envelope that had just been delivered, Teddy had been utterly delightful at the sudden change in arrangements.  
>"Sweet Merlin..." Remus had whispered, his eyes widening in shock, and Dora had paused midway through pouring herself a cup of coffee to ask:<p>

"What's that, love?"

"Wait...let me read it again!"

"Why, what is it?"

Teddy had watched his mother abandon her cup upon the kitchen countertop so that she could come to stand at Remus' back, peering down at the letter over his shoulder. The boy had watched her eyes darting from side to side as she read the words printed upon the creamy sheet of parchment...

Dora let out a high-pitched shriek, causing her son to jump, his elbow knocking over his beaker of orange juice, leaving it to splash all over the newspaper that Remus had left upon the table. But neither adult appeared to notice the boy's blunder as she flung her arms around the werewolf's neck, face positively alight with joy as she cried:

"I knew it! I just knew it!"

And Teddy had watched curiously as Remus rose from his chair, turning to throw his arms around his wife with a laugh, lifting the witch straight off her feet, and the pair twirled triumphantly around, very nearly slipping in the steadily growing puddle of orange juice upon the tiled floor.

"Merlin, this doesn't even feel real!"

"But it is! It is real, Remus, it's perfectly real! You did it! I told you you'd do it, didn't I? HA!"

"I...I'm going to need a second suit..."

"Yes, you are! Let's go and buy one...let's do it now!"

"What? Dora...you're due at work in half an hour!"

"I don't care, Remus! I...I honestly couldn't care less I...I don't think I've felt this happy since...since...I don't even know when! I can't just go to work!"

"Kingsley'll have a fit."

"Yeah? Well Kingsley can get stuffed, this is bloody fantastic news, let's make the most of it! I told you it'd work out, didn't I? Didn't I tell you?"

"Yes, you did..."

"And did you listen?"

"Merlin, no! Ha!"

Teddy had waited patiently for his parents to get over their sudden bout of madness, quite bemused at their half-dance around the kitchen, their sudden inability to let go of one another and their ability to have a full blown conversation between kissing much too enthusiastically for a young boy to observe without screwing his face up in disgust.

His expression had altered substantially when his mother had dragged herself away from his father just long enough to exclaim:

"Leave that toast, Teddy Sweetheart! We're going to go and have ice cream for breakfast!"

Ice cream for breakfast.

Teddy had never heard a more wild or indeed wonderful suggestion in all his years.

Ice cream for breakfast was about the only thing that Teddy did like about his father acquiring a part time job.

He hated just about everything else.

Especially spending every Monday, Wednesday and Thursday being passed around various family friends and relatives. He had never quite understood why he didn't simply always go to his grandmother's house. He'd later supposed that his parents had made the arrangement haphazard on purpose. Charged with looking after Teddy once every few weeks, each of his carers would make an extra effort to entertain him: he went to parks, went shopping, watched Quidditch matches and tagged along on errands and trips to visit relatives that had no connection to him personally at all.

In short, Teddy was swamped with all manner of everyday scenarios and encounters that left him quite frightened without a parent beside him. For a time he was relentlessly shy, persistently nervous and frequently tearful. But his reluctance to throw himself into life and not hide away in the safety of his home with his father was gently discouraged.

"I don't want to go to Grandma Molly's house, Daddy!"  
>"Why ever not, Ted?"<p>

"She might make me go to Muriel's house again for tea..."

"What an excellent idea! Did you meet her pet kneazle...what's it called..."

"Reginald."

"That's the one! Have you seen him? I'm told he likes to play with balls of string. Why don't you take one with you, when you go?"

"I don't want Ginny to take me to Quidditch, Daddy."

"Why not, Teddy?"

"It's noisy and crowded and busy..."

"Of course it is, Ted. You need a lot of people to cheer at Quidditch matches, you know. If you didn't the players would never hear them, they're so far up in the air!"

"Can't you come with us?"

"Not today, I've got to go to work. You make sure you remember the final score, won't you? I want to hear all about it when I get home this evening!"

And so it was that Teddy's confidence became slowly restored, so much so that one morning, having been sent out into the little front garden to retrieve the recycling box that had been left there by the muggle dustmen, Teddy had come across Taylor Beech sat upon her front step, busy adding a bright array of colour to a colouring book with a set of chunky felt-tipped pens, and the young wizard had called:

"Hello..."

Taylor had looked up from her colouring, reaching to sweep the short, muddy brown hair from her eyes to regard the boy curiously for a moment, and he had wondered:

"What are you drawing?"

"I'm not drawing, I'm colouring." she'd explained, and Teddy had abandoned his designated task in order to wander over towards her.

"Well then, what are you colouring?"

"It's a pony. My name's Taylor. What's yours?"

"Teddy."

"That's a rather funny sort of name."

"Well my mum says I'm a rather funny sort of boy."

Taylor's mum, Teddy soon discovered, said that Taylor was a rather silly sort of girl. She liked to tell tales. Tall ones, it seemed, for she was known by both her family and a number of other neighbours by a very telling nickname: Tall Tale Taylor.

The tales grew steadily taller once Taylor had befriended the new boy next door.

_Mum, Mum! There's a owl in the garden! In the middle of the day! _

_Mum, Mum! There was a...a floating chair in next door's garden! I saw it with my own eyes! It was floating in the air, it really was!_

_Mum, Mum! Teddy next door, he can make his hair turn bright blue! He can, I saw!_

_The door next door, Mum, it opens all by itself..._

And it seemed to Teddy that whenever Taylor and her mother were busy bickering non-too discreetly in their back garden, Teddy's own mother and father were often busy doing some bickering of their own.

"That's another one, Dora..."

"Oh bloody hell!"

"This isn't good."

"Why do you always say it like that? Like it's all MY fault?"

"It usually is..."

"Well it wasn't me this time, it was you! You and that bloody smug hovering charm of yours!"

"Whatever it was, this is the third letter we've had. If we're not careful..."

"They'll give us a formal warning and tell us to pack up and move! I know, Remus, I'm not a bloody idiot, I do work for those morons, you know!"

"Tell Ted again, won't you? Tell him to stop waving that toy broomstick around all over the place for Merlin's sake, goodness knows what that must look like to muggles..."

"I told you it was a crap idea, living here, I told you, didn't I?"

"No you didn't! It was your idea to start with!"

"Well I don't now! I think it's crap!"

"Well carry on regardless then, darling. You can get us forcibly evicted within a week if you work hard at it..."

Apparently Dora had taken this suggestion perfectly seriously, or so it had seemed to Teddy, for a couple of days later an owl delivered a Ministry letter berating her use of the reparo charm upon a garden chair that Teddy's enthusiastic climbing upon had rendered short of a leg. Apparently she had been seen by a muggle. She'd claimed to have checked she hadn't been watched, but Teddy supposed she hadn't tried hard enough to spot Taylor peering through a gap in the garden fence.

That evening Teddy had been bored to death at dinner by the dull and extremely serious subject of muggle repelling spells and quite how his parents were going to protect themselves against the increasing wrath of the Ministry of Magic, whose hefty fines they could ill afford to pay, but they never did get the opportunity to put their plans into action, for the following morning Dora had been in such a rush to get to work that she had entirely forgotten herself, rushing to the bottom of their garden path and, in broad daylight, the witch disapparated with a pop...

And from where he had stood at his father's side upon the front doorstep, Remus' shout of warning coming half a second too late, Teddy had watched the look of pure shock on Mrs. Beech's face as she paused midway through herding her children into the back seats of her car...

There had been the briefest of stunned pauses.

And then Mrs. Beech had promptly fainted.

For the first time in Teddy's living memory, he'd heard his father mutter:

"Oh _shit_..."

And as her brother scrambled back out of the car in alarm at their mother's sudden collapse, Tell Tale Taylor had simply announced:

"I told you so!"

And that was how Teddy's mother had received a Formal Warning from the Ministry of Magic for breaking the Statute of Secrecy once too often, and Teddy had promptly found himself moving to yet another new house...


	7. Caroline Winters

_Note: I quoted Meet the Lupins because I'm spectacularly lazy! _

_This chapter considers of Super Fluff with a sprinkling of cheese. You have been warned!_

_Anyway, this is the last chapter, so I hope you all enjoy it! And of course, since this is the last chapter, it is entitled:_

**7: Caroline Winters**

There had been so many different houses over the years, so many different neighbours. But he'd never felt this way about any of them before. Not the way he felt about her.

Of course for a long while there hadn't been anybody of Teddy's age living next door to the Lupins' sixth house in the outskirts of the muggle town of Eddington. His parents had said it was a pity, but Teddy himself had at first supposed it to be some sort of blessing.

Because it always went wrong. Having neighbours his age.

But after a while Teddy began to find himself feeling rather lonely. Especially when his father had arrived to pick him up early from his grandmother's house one afternoon, his face pale and his shoulders slumped.

Everything felt more lonely and dull after that day, that wretched and awful day that his father had lost his job without a single day's notice. As a family before then they had been so happy and Remus had always had a permanent smile plastered upon his face.

Teddy was pretty sure that after that day his father didn't smile for at least a month. Not once. And his mother seemed incapable of going a full day without nagging Teddy about one thing or another.

_Don't look so miserable, Ted. If the wind changes you'll stay like that._

_Stop frowning at me and go and tidy your bedroom._

_How about a smile? This house isn't surrounded by Dementers, you know!_

She never once dared to ask Remus to smile. But she spent an awful lot of time reminding him that she loved him. Teddy supposed this in itself was meant to coax a smile onto the werewolf's face, but it never did. Sometimes it even made him scowl.

Teddy admired the seemingly impenetrable strength of his mother's resolve. The atmosphere in the house would slowly improve, only for some unknown event to shatter all the progress and leave Remus in even deeper depths of depression than before. And yet throughout it all, Dora remained unfathomable optimistic and cheerful.

Teddy sometimes felt bad that he couldn't quite match her. He began to wish there was somebody he could talk to about the way things were at home, but nobody seemed prepared to listen. Not his parents, not his grandmother, not his godfather, his aunts or uncles. They were all the same. Too caught up with the premise of keeping cheerful to truly listen to him. He felt as if telling them a single negative thing would in some way be letting them down.

And then she came.

He would always remember the first time he ever saw her, perched precariously high in the tree overlooking his back garden, the bright sunshine of the early afternoon at her back, so bright that it glowed around her and made her chestnut hair glisten as if it were sprinkled with diamonds, a curious angel with pigtails and tube socks, squinting down at him as she swung her dangling legs idly back and forth.

Having looked up from the book that he had been reading to find her staring down at him, Teddy had simply stared back at her for a long moment, until she felt compelled to call:

"Hello...my name's Carrie...Caroline Winters. My family just moved in here."

Teddy hadn't even realised that a new family was moving in next door. The previous muggles had left some week previously, which had all been rather exciting because he had sat upon his front doorstep and watched all of the furniture and strange muggle contraptions being carried out of the house and loaded into a van. He wondered when this girl's family had moved all of their own possessions in because he hadn't noticed it happening at all. It had probably been whilst he had been round at Harry's house the previous day. He'd stayed a few extra hours in order to have tea because Ginny had been baking triple chocolate cake, it was inconceivable as far as Teddy was concerned to leave James and Albus to eat it all on their own.

As he squinted up at Caroline Winters, Teddy felt even more excited at the prospect of making a new friend than he had been by the removal van last week for sure! He felt rather inclined to fidget at such a rush of excitement, but didn't want her to think he was strange, so he called:

"Hello Carrie, my name's Teddy. Teddy Lupin." He hadn't quite resisted offering her a little wave, the most excited movement he would allow himself, and he'd felt rather pleased when Carrie had smiled brightly at him. But then the smile had faded from her face a little and she had called:

"You're wearing a wooly hat."

Teddy had sucked in a deep, thoughtfully breath as he wondered quite what to say to this observation. Clearly his efforts to appear normal had already failed abysmally.

_Thanks, Mum_, the metamorphmagus thought irritably, barely resisting the urge to reach to yank the hat from his head. Having been struck with rather severe hayfever over the past few days, Teddy had found himself instructed by Dora to wear a hat whilst outside at all times, owing to the unfortunate habit of his hair changing colour unexpectedly when he sneezed.

"Yes..." he called back to Carrie, wondering quite what he ought to say because he wasn't terribly used to lying convincingly to muggles. He usually left that up to his parents, who, since their disastrous time in the previous house had grown somewhat expert at hiding their magical tendencies. "I couldn't find my baseball cap."

Apparently Carrie Winters hadn't thought all that much of this explanation, for she had gingerly let go of the branch that she was clinging to in order to gesturing behind her towards the sun, calling:

"It's the middle of the summer though, you'd be better off without any hat at all, wouldn't you? You must feel terribly hot!"

She probably had a point, the young wizard admitted to himself, because he'd not been sat outside long and he could already feel the edge of the hat growing damp from the sweat upon his brow.

_Thanks, Mum_, he thought irritably again, refusing to acknowledge the fact that he had nobody to blame for the disappearance of his baseball cap other than himself. But to Carrie he simply offered a shrug.

"I have to wear a hat sometimes," he decided as down the other end of the garden he heard the sound of the back door being pulled open. "When I'm not well."

Carrie Winters' face had grown pink in embarrassment, no doubt she felt bad to have stuck her nose into his business. That had pretty much been his intention, truth be told, because guilt was probably as good as any way to stop a muggle asking too many questions, but as he heard his mother calling him in for lunch, Teddy found himself feeling really rather wretched. Initially he'd felt quite proud of his cover up, he thought his parents probably would be too when he told them all about it later. Except he couldn't possibly tell them about it now. Not with the utter mortification that had dawned upon Carrie's face searing into eyes and making him feel so dreadful that he headed inside at a run, managing to shoot the horrified girl a smile and a wave as he went.

He'd sulked at his own mistake for quite a long while after that. He hadn't wanted to make such a awful start when it came to befriending the girl next door, for one thing, and then of course there had been the awful moment the following day when she had knocked on his front door and presented Dora with an enormous plateful of cookies. Teddy had heard the whole dreadful exchange from his position hiding at the top of the stairs.

His parents had been utterly livid with him when they had found out about the wooly hat and the neighbours' dreadful conclusion that he was suffering from cancer. He had tried to hide in his bedroom for the rest of the day, let them simmer furiously for a while until they calmed down a bit. But his refusal to go downstairs when his mother had initially called him had done him no favours at all. Instead his father had ended up shouting for him too. Remus had used his full name. He always knew there was big trouble ahead when he heard _Theodore!_ being bellowed up the stairs.

"Do you think your mother has all day to sit and wait for you to choose to come downstairs?" Remus had asked when he had finally consented to trailing into the sitting room, where he found both parents stood, their arms folded and their expressions bordering on murderous. Before he could answer this question, which was probably just as well because some questions ought never be answered, his mother had snapped:

"Stop scuffing mud all over the carpet and sit down!"

Once he had obediently sat upon the sofa, failing to point out to his mother that she trailed mud all over the carpet almost every day she flooed home from work, there had then followed a long period of time in which they had simply talked at him without pausing for breath. It was almost rather impressive and was filled with phrases such as:

_Cancer, Teddy! Bloody cancer, for Merlin's sake!_

_What in Merlin's name goes on in that head of yours? A wooly hat in the middle of July! It's utterly ridiculous!_

_Nonsense like this is completely unacceptable, Theodore, it really it!_

_Do you want us to lose another house? Well? Do you? _

_I thought we'd brought up a son with at least a vague semblance of common sense! I was wrong, wasn't I? _

_It was embarrassing, Theodore! Humiliating, even!_

_I mean...CANCER?_

He'd stopped listening after a while. Concentrated on the steadily reddening shade of his mother's hair until his father had grown tired of talking at him, a frequent occurrence that his wife never shared, and had gone to sit in the armchair opposite the fireplace.

"Alright," the werewolf had sighed, no doubt having concluded that Teddy had stopped listening quite a while ago. "Enough."

Teddy felt quite relieved when his mother had stopped pacing up and down in front of the sofa and had consented to standing still and silent, and it was then that the boy supposed he should probably listen again because this was usually when something vastly important got said.

"Theodore," he father had begun in his very best I'm About To Say Something Vastly Important voice, and Teddy had made sure to look up at him. "I know your mother and I say this often, but the Statute of Secrecy is a very, very important law and it is absolutely essential that we do not risk exposing our world."

"What, never?" Teddy said, frowning deeply, and his parents had exchanged a look. Then Remus had sighed heavily and had murmured:

"It's a very...difficult situation, Ted. Of course we should mix with muggles, there is absolutely nothing wrong with that at all. There's no law against it, in fact I think it ought be encouraged. But at the same time having muggles know about magic is a very risky business. For us and for them."

"The Ministry have a habit of Obliviating muggles who find out about us if they don't trust them, love." Dora reminded him frankly. "Now I'd say them being ignorant from the start is better for them than having us mess around with them, wouldn't you? They don't ask us to obliviate them, we just do it. That's an unfair but necessary system, Teddy. Don't get muggles messed up in it, it's not right."

"How do any of them find out, then?" Teddy wondered, reaching to hug his legs to his chest and frowning deeply. It didn't make sense, he thought. One minute his father was telling him to mix with muggles, the next his mother was telling him to do nothing of the sort...

"The trick is to pick the right muggle." Remus clarified, and Teddy puffed his cheeks in consideration.

"How do you do that? How do you know if a muggle is...is the _right_ muggle?"

To his irritation his father had simply smiled and his mother had laughed and exclaimed:

"Now, there's a question!"

"Answer it, then!" Teddy had exclaimed, and his mother had sobered and admitted:

"I don't know that I can, Sweetheart. I've never told a muggle I was a witch, not unless they already knew about magic or were going to get obliviated later..." Dora chewed thoughtfully upon a nail for a moment, before supposing: "You'd have to trust them, I suppose. More than anything it would be about trust."

"You'd have to know they wouldn't overreact. That they would accept the truth without too much fuss." Remus theorized, frowning deeply, and Dora agreed:

"Yes, they'd need to be open-minded. Not judgemental. Or jealous. Because you know, you'd be jealous wouldn't you? If you couldn't do magic."

"Somebody capable of seeing their own worth."

"Somebody loyal."

"Yes, somebody very loyal. Somebody you could be open with, who would trust you to tell them everything that they needed to know. Because it would be all or nothing, something like that."

"You'd just...know, wouldn't you Remus? You'd just know you could tell them."

"Yes..."

After their vague theories, Dora's gaze upon Teddy narrowed and she added:

"I'll tell you what they shouldn't be, Teddy. They shouldn't be a random person you've barely met for more than a few minutes. Even if her mum bakes decent cookies. Do you understand?"

Teddy told her that he certainly did understand. He understood very well indeed.

But, having resolved to befriend the girl next door and quickly having done precisely that, it wasn't long before he decided that Caroline Winters was not just some _random person_, as his mother had put it. No, she was much more than just that.

Carrie was open-minded.

She told him that his family keeping a couple of owls as pets was ridiculous. She giggled at him and told him that nobody kept wild animals like that as pets. She probably thought he was crazy. But she still asked him if he would be attending Oakhurst Manor School with her that September, and she had even agreed to go round to his house for lunch to see the owls with her own eyes.

Carrie was curious.

She asked a lot of questions. _Why? What kind of people are you? Are you a pagan? What about your parents?_ She was genuinely interested in the little oddities that, throughout their days playing together, she picked up upon. Interested in a wholly innocent fashion, as if she simply wanted to fit together some puzzle pieces to see and admire the full picture.

Carrie was careful.

She had been brought up to be polite and mindful of others. That was why she had been so embarrassed by their first encounter, why she had apologised so sincerely to Dora afterwards. It was always _Good Morning, Mr. Lupin_, _Thank you for having me, Mrs. Lupin,_ and despite Teddy's cryptic ramblings about Remus' condition she never asked him the downright tricky question: _What precisely is wrong with your father?_

Carrie was funny.

She made Teddy laugh and laugh until his stomach hurt. She made daft observations about things that weren't quite muggle and looked at him funny when he did the same about things that were very muggle indeed. He was pretty sure he could spend all day, every day playing catch with her and running amok in the back garden, because he always felt happy and a little bit silly when she was around. It was like things should have been for him all along.

Carrie was kind.

She told him things with his father would get better, told him that Remus would surely find another job soon. She did her level best to cheer him up should he feel down, even though in truth they barely knew one another and she could easily simply say something polite and disappear off back to her own house.

Carrie was quiet.

She was a rather shy girl with a softly spoken voice and it was very difficult to imagine her getting angry or making a fuss about anything at all. Teddy thought it rather lucky that his mother was rarely at home during the day, and that when she was she appeared to be acting unnaturally calm, not at all her usually hyper-active and noisy self. He had a feeling Hurricane Dora might just blow a girl like Carrie away.

Carrie was modest.

Naïve was probably a better word for it. Teddy suspected that she might not even know what boasting was, which was probably lucky because from what Teddy could tell her family was far more well off than his own. She and her two elder brothers were going to attend the local private school and her brothers always seemed to be off doing some sort of expensive sounding activity or another. Even if she was a bit clueless about the world, Teddy was rather glad of it. He didn't think she was the sort of girl who would be jealous, and if she was she'd probably be very nice about it because she probably didn't know how to be jealous properly. She was safe. Clueless, but safe.

Carrie was loyal.

She said she'd see him tomorrow morning, and she did exactly that. She promised to write to him every day when he went away to boarding school, as if they were already the best of friends and though he'd only known her a matter of days Teddy genuinely believed that she was the closest thing to a best friend that he had ever had.

She wasn't aggressive like Angel Broadview.

She wasn't a snitch like Graham Francis.

She wasn't downright creepy like the Jarvis triplets.

And she wasn't a tell-tale like Taylor Beech.

No, Caroline Winters was something else entirely.

And so it was that Teddy Lupin finally resolved to voluntarily tell the truth.

_"You know," Teddy told her as he pulled her backwards a few steps before giving her a firm push forwards again, "before you moved in there was an old couple living in the house next to mine. They didn't have any children, I used to think I was the only person my age on the whole street."_

_"I saw some bikes outside one of the houses across the road yesterday." Carrie told him, swinging her legs back and forth as she swung._

_"I know," Teddy replied as he gave her another firm push. "That's Mr. and Mrs. Norman's house. They've got four sons, but they're all older than us." He paused then, as if wondering if to go on, before telling her: "I never made friends with anyone in the old houses. We didn't stay long enough half the time, and then I'd just think...what's the point of making friends? We'll only end up moving again. But now...now you're here..." He stopped pushing and after a while Carrie felt the swing begin to lose momentum. "Carrie?" he mumbled eventually, and Carrie barely heard him. "I want to tell you the secret."_

_Carrie put her feet down, scuffing her shoes against the grass until she came to a halt. She shifted until she was sat sideways upon the little wooden seat so that she could look up at him._

_"But I can't." he went on, expression deadly serious. "Not...not on purpose, at least."_

_"But you could tell me...by accident?" Carrie asked slowly, though she wasn't sure exactly how one could say something like that by accident._

_"Yes," Teddy mumbled. "By accident on purpose."_

_"Okay..."_

_"The truth is, Carrie, I have to wear hats to hide my hair."_

_"Oh?"_

_"Yeah...because when I have a cold, or hay fever that makes me sneeze...something happens that people like you aren't meant to see."_

_"Right..." Carrie attempted to keep a straight face. Clearly, she thought as he stared down at her, expression still serious, this boy was stir crazy._

_"And now I've stopped sneezing Mum said I could take the hats off. But...if I were to sneeze...well, you'd find out the truth, or at least a bit of it. And it wouldn't be my fault. I can't help it if I have to sneeze."_

_"Right..." Carrie said again, nodding her head slowly as if she understood him._

_"You think that's silly don't you?" Teddy observed, cheeks reddening a little. "I suppose it is a bit...but...well I can't just tell you. For one thing you wouldn't believe me, and I don't want to lie to my parents about it later."_

_"Accidentally on purpose is the same as on purpose, Teddy." she pointed out, for this was the only part of the conversation that she truly understood._

_"No it isn't." Teddy insisted rather hurriedly, glancing around them as if he were worried that somebody might see them._

_"It is, because..."_

_"You're wrong, it isn't."_

_Carrie stared at him for a long moment, a deep frown creasing her brow._

_He knows I'm right, she thought to herself as he stared back at her in a somewhat challenging manner. He just wants to pretend. That's Teddy for you, always pretending..._

_Just agree with him, then he'll...well...do something..._

_"Okay then," she finally agreed. "It isn't."_

_There was a long pause as Teddy scrunched up his face a little, twitching his nose in an attempt to make himself sneeze._

_"You get hay fever?" Carrie asked at last, and he gave a small nod, face still scrunched up in effort. One hand grasping the swing to steady herself, Carrie leant down to grasp a handful of grass, giving it a firm yank until it came free in her hand. She proceeded to throw the grass at Teddy's face._

_For a moment he froze, nose still twitching..._

_And then it happened._

_Teddy Lupin sneezed._

_And at that moment, within a blink, his hair turned a dazzling shade of turquoise, right before Carrie Winters' eyes._

He never had expected her to fall backwards off the swing and very nearly give herself a concussion. Years later he supposed that it couldn't have happened any other way.

He hadn't expected her calm acceptance of the existence of magic, either, and he really hadn't expected her to be entirely unconcerned to learn of his father's lycanthropy. She hadn't been at all startled, indeed she had grown to be one of Remus' fiercest defenders over the years. Woe betide anyone who criticised the werewolf or indeed any Lupin within earshot of Carrie Winters. She'd lose her shy persona in a heartbeat and snap such vehement defence that it could put even Dora to shame. To be honest, Teddy found it a little startling.

She wasn't perfect. She doubted herself dreadfully, longing for magic of her own and was entirely convinced that she would be better off should she ever develop it. She had a rather dreadful habit of eavesdropping that got her into disproportionately huge amounts of trouble, and she managed to ignore the advice that was always most crucial to her. She and Teddy argued sometimes and she cried all too easily, but Teddy supposed she would do because she was, after all, a girl. She could be quite obsessive by nature and had a rather awful taste in muggle friends. Both of these traits got on Teddy's nerves and sometimes he thought she needed somebody to grab her and shake some sense into that silly, daydreaming head of hers, have somebody set her feet firmly down upon the ground and persuade her to stand upon them, remind her that at some point there would be nobody there to hold her hand...

Teddy loved her.

Of course he'd always loved her, she had always been utterly precious to him because she was his best friend. But then it had suddenly occurred to him that he didn't just love her because they were friends. No, it was much, much more than that.

He wanted to marry her. Grow old with her, stay with her forever, hold onto her for eternity and never let her go.

He never really knew precisely when this flood of feelings had suddenly engulfed him because he was sure it had been a gradual thing; when he realised she'd been to his house for lunch seven days in a row and he couldn't imagine lunch without her, when he'd been away at Hogwarts and realised how much he longed to have her there with him, when he'd arrived home for the summer aged fifteen and had unexpectedly found himself thinking that she was particularly pretty, as girls went. When they'd gone for a walk to the shops and the wind had blown the hair into her eyes and he'd reached to sweep it back for her as he often did only this time he'd felt..._funny_...

When he'd gone round to her house to watch the television and had caught himself staring at her chest.

When she'd written to tell him that she'd got a boyfriend who wasn't him, and having read her letter under his desk in the middle of History of Magic class he'd wanted to sink down off his chair and curl up into a ball on the floor, his head flushed with such intense jealousy that for a while he'd not quite known what to do with himself.

When his mother had flung her fork down in the middle of dinner one evening to exclaim: _Yes, Sweetheart, Dad and I get it! You think Carrie's boyfriend is a complete and utter prat! Do you think we could change the subject for at least thirty seconds?_

When he'd flung his own fork down upon his plate and told his mother: _No!_

When he'd found out that she'd been cheated on and subsequently dumped, and he'd wanted to dance for joy at the news, whilst feeling such overwhelming fury that he'd wanted to dance and murder the disgraceful little bastard for hurting her so dreadfully all at the same time.

When he'd finally admitted to her exactly how he felt, they'd kissed and she'd fallen off that infernal swing again.

When a few years later he'd returned to the green with their old swing to discover that somebody had taken it down, and he'd spent the rest of the day building a new one to hang in it's place.

When the following morning they'd walked hand in hand up the street and onto the green. He'd sat her upon the new swing before getting down on one knee to propose to her, and felt oddly disappointed when she failed to take a third tumble.

By then Teddy Lupin had known without doubt that he loved Caroline Winters more than anything in the whole entire world.

And so it was that the two of them got married and Teddy came to find himself living in another new house...

**Finish.**


End file.
